Postgraduate Course: Illness Narratives through History (PG version) (ENLI11248)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course examines the dynamic relationship between literature and medicine from the early modern period to the present day, giving students the opportunity to consider the ways in which literature and medicine have influenced each other over time. The chronology of the course does not trace a history of medical progress; rather, it follows literature's interruption of and critical reflection on that history. Grotesque bodily humour, mysterious wounds, accounts of trauma, unspeakable pain, and the disruption of mind by illness will offer an alternative, literary perspective on medical history. Students will have the opportunity to place literary texts in their historical context, in order to better understand their reflections on illness, health, and medicine. The course will appeal to students who have a particular interest in the intersections between medicine, science and literature.
The course will achieve these aims by reading poems, plays and novels from antiquity to the present day, alongside various non-fiction sources. This course is, however, not merely a historical overview. It will allow students to examine the ways in which discourses of embodiment and the view of the sick body change according to shifting political, social and cultural contexts. |
| Course description |
This course consolidates students' knowledge of the critical study of English Literature through the close examination of works of drama, poetry, and prose from the early modern period to the present day; it will therefore complement the historical survey element of the core courses of Literature and Society students and introduce Literature and Modernity students to material they would not otherwise have the opportunity to study. The course is designed to expose students to a range of literary forms (essays, short fiction, short lyric, longer narrative poetry, realist fiction, metafiction) and to develop modes of analysis appropriate for engaging with each. The chronological structure broadly traces the stages of life (from conception to end of life), mapping these onto a broadly chronological survey of major literary periods (early modern to contemporary literature).
The course's historical approach will train students in methods appropriate for analysing texts in their historical contexts, with a particular focus on the relationship between the history of medicine (defined broadly to include health, wellbeing, and illness). The course also introduces students to theories that are of particular importance in the emerging field of the medical humanities, and which offer alternative models for analysing issues raised in their core course texts, such as disability studies, trauma theory, narrative ethics and narratology. The course will introduce students to interdisciplinary scholarship, through critical study of the dynamic relationship between literature and medicine.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- understand the ways in which 'illness' has been conceptualised and represented in literary works from the Renaissance to the present day
- develop a critical vocabulary for analysing 'illness' in its literary and historical context, drawing upon major critical and theoretical approaches to the study of illness in the literary medical humanities, particularly: close reading, history of medicine, disability studies, medical humanities, and literature and science studies
- analyse the relationship between literature and medicine as expressed in texts on the course
- demonstrate competency in interdisciplinary research by applying literary critical, historical, and medical humanities approaches in planning and executing research into the representation of ¿illness¿ in texts on the course
- articulate (in written form) an informed and critical understanding of the diverse meanings of 'illness' in texts on the course
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Reading List
The course reading list is available via LEARN or via the Library's Resource List Service:
https://eu01.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/leganto/public/44UOE_INST/lists/18387933730002466?auth=SAML
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Apply critical analysis, evaluation and synthesis to issues
Develop original and creative responses to problems and issues
Deal with complex issues and make informed judgements in situations in the absence of complete or consistent data/information.
Exercise substantial autonomy and initiative
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| Keywords | illness,medical humanities,history of medicine,literary form,disability studies,trauma |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Katherine Inglis
Tel: (0131 6)50 3617
Email: K.Inglis@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Kara McCormack
Tel: (0131 6)50 3030
Email: Kara.McCormack@ed.ac.uk |
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